Talk:Comics

New user

Hi! I'm a new user here, having used this Wiki for some time now but only now have found reason to register, as I stumbled over quite a few places that need maintanence, almost all of them in the comics section, which is why I state my question here: Is it okay to clean up a bit? I'm not talking about deleting stuff, rather about bringing things in order, correcting midguiding links, wrong dates, incomplete listings and stuff.

My main concern for now would be the canon and ambiguis canon comics that are set after the ending of Angel, i.e. the IDW-Series and following. The reason for this is that I startet to read them, and tried to figure out what comics there are following the television series and in what order I should read them. And to be frankly, that's not that easy, as many pages here are incomplete, contradicting or simply wrong in one way or the other, and I'd like to correct that over time. This includes both the individual pages as well as the categories, as they seem to be used quite arbitrarily as well. Should I simply start or rather first discuss certain changes before actually doing them?

Hi Wikiafrog, of course! You're more than welcome to help out. Check out my Sandbox for some guides for setting up pages. Basically, set 1 would be to make sure that all individual issues have their own page with full summary and full appearance listing. From that it is pretty easy to make the correct series and collection pages based by aggregating data from other pages. Also, Season Nine is a perfect example of how it should be set up. Good luck and thanks for all the help! --―Paul van Gent (talk 09:06, April 6, 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the encouragement! I'll do my very best, but as I'm no student anymore, my available time unfortunatelly is limited, so it will take a while, but I guess that's normal. Thanks for the advice of making Season Nine my reference, it's always easier if you have a model to compare something with. WikiaFrogo (talk) 12:59, April 8, 2013 (UTC)

IDW Angel meta series

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I noticed that, beginning with After the Fall, all IDW publications seem to belong to the same continuity (though only After the Fall itself is officially considered canon). I can't confirm that yet, as I haven't read all of them yet, but I'd like to create a meta-series based on that if it proofs correct. As I understand it by now, that would include the full run of Angel (IDW series), the graphic novels Spike: After the Fall, Only Human and Illyria: Haunted, the Spike mini-series and the Lorne one-shot. The After the Fall meta-series would then be a part of it (the canonical, in fact). However, what escapes me for now is a good name for it, but all I can think of that would fit is "IDW Angel meta-series". As I won't start on it before having read all aforementioned titles (which should be a matter of just a few weeks), I welcome you to offer better suggestions! WikiaFrogo (talk) 13:01, April 8, 2013 (UTC)

I totally agree with you! "Angel Comics" is not a good meta-series, the titles have no internal continuity. My guess is something like this would be better:

Angel: The Hollower was created before the spin-off started and is really just about Angel as a Buffy cast member; I think this is part of the "Classic Comics" meta-series.

Angel (Dark Horse series) was the initial Angel comic, but it was heavily tied to the classic Buffy run, so maybe this should be part of "Classic Comics" meta-series as well?

Long Night's Journey was a weird alternate take on the series and as such doesn't really fit in anywhere else. Should it be its own meta-series or is there a category of miscellaneous comics?

Then there's IDW, everything before After the Fall is pretty random with few ties to what comes after. Except Spike: Shadow Puppets and Spike: Asylum, which in my opinion should be grouped with After the Fall conceptually.

Finally, yes most post-After the Fall titles share a single continuity so it would make sense to group them together. But the historic comics such as Barbary Coast and Angel vs. Frankenstein again don't fit in here, nor do the episode remakes.

You pose an interesting question about grouping. I will have to think about it some more. I'm curious what you think once you've read all the comics. ―Paul van Gent (talk 15:40, April 8, 2013 (UTC)

To be honest, I didn't look that much into the older Angel comics so far, as for now my main interest lies in the IDW-series, as I'm currently reading them. But when working on the real world chronology, I noticed some of your remarks as well. At present, I would identify the following groups/meta-series pre-Season 8:

Buffy Classic: The classic Buffy run and all character spin-offs, including Angel: The Hollower

Angel Classic (Dark Horse): The classic Dark Horse Angel run, as well as Long Night's Journey. As the Buffy comics don't all tie in together (At least that's my impression, but I haven't read them), this shouldn't be a problem here either.

Angel Classic (IDW): All IDW-publications set before the Fall (though in cases published afterwards)

Angel continuation (IDW): All IDW-publications set after the Fall (the original reason for this topic)

This is how I would put these meta-series together. In my opinion "Angel comics" as such is not a meta-series but only a category, and as such should only include comics derived from the Angel tv series, therefore excluding The Hollower. Where this puts "Spike comics" or "Willow comics" is a different thing however and should be discussed somewhere else, I think. WikiaFrogo (talk) 12:17, April 12, 2013 (UTC)

I have to add something: I forgot your mentioning of the classic Angel run being heavily tied into the Buffy run. As I said, I haven't read them, which is why I didn't consider that, but in this case the meta-series could of course consist of both (called "Classic Dark Horse" or something like that), having two main series and several mini series. What do you think? WikiaFrogo (talk) 13:04, April 13, 2013 (UTC)

Ok, now I'm done with all IDW comics except those which don't belong to the Angel continuation (as for now I have no interest in those). I think I got a little carried away in my enthusiasm here at the beginning, but basically I think the grouping as presented above is still a suitable suggestion. However, after browsing through all the classic Dark Horse material for my work at the real world continuity and after reading the Angel comics, my suggestion is slightly different now:

As the classic Angel comics are by far lesser in numbers than the Buffy ones, and because of the intermixture (expecially of the "Past Lives" story arc), I think all Dark Horse Comics pre season 8 (except Fray and Tales of the Vampires, which both completely stand on their own, though published in the same timeframe) should simply be collected under the meta-series Classic Dark Horse or Dark Horse Classic, so that it consists of two main series (like Season 9) and several mini-series, one-shots and shorts. The only reasonable way to break it into smaller series would be the aforementioned seperation by tv series (basically as it is done with the Omnibuses), if it doesn't feel right to exclude Fray and Tales from the classic Dark Horse run that way. Every other grouping wouldn't make sense in my opinion, as otherwise some of the comics simply are too diverse to each other, like the ones you already mentioned. I wouldn't want for them to be completely on their own, as they do still belong to the rest one way or the other. However, Fray and Tales are definitely their own (small, but very distinct) meta-series.

The IDW comics are all part of the same Angel license, and as such can bee seen as their own meta-series in my opinion (called IDW Angel or something like that, though it has to be kept seperate from its main series). It would consist of some mini-series and one-shots and everything belonging to the Angel continuation (as I call it for lack of a better name), which I still would like to consider as a sub meta-series (and I agree with you here, Spike: Asylum and Spike: Shadow Puppets should be considered some sort of part of it as well, sort of like a side entrance preface, or however you'd describe it). I wouldn't make a meta-series out of the stuff not belonging to the Angel continuation however, as it is no more connected to each other as it is to the continuation (though in parts even contradicts the latter, if I get it right).

I know that the meta-series as suggested by me have no official backing, unlike Seasons 8 and 9. I think however that it would make sense to group these comics this way, and to give them an overview like there exists for Seasons Eight and Nine as well. I'd like to start on those as soon as possible, so it would be great to hear your opinion about it. WikiaFrogo (talk) 17:47, May 14, 2013 (UTC)

I think maybe you are right: the division should be as simple as possible

Publication order

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I noticed that the field "publication order" in the info boxes of comic publications is used rather inconsistently. If you try to navigate through some series, you sometimes navigate into dead ends when other publications not belonging to the series are included as well, without any possibility to reach follow up publications of the series. What is the correct use of that field? In my opinion there are three possible solutions:

Everything counts: Disregarding any distinctions between series, all publications have to be included, so that e.g. an Angel issue is followed by a Buffy issue, which in turn is followed by a Spike issue. In my opinion that's not what's desired, as the publications if ordered by this often have no connection apart from the chronological one.

Order by meta-series: Only publications of the same meta-series are conidered. So "Buffy Vol.x" may be followed by "Spike: Whatever", which then is followed by "Buffy Vol.x+1". This only works for mutually excluding meta-serieses of course (so a meta-series like Spike comics should be ignored in this case).

Order by series Only publications of the same series are considered. So "Buffy Vol.x" is followed by "Buffy Vol.x+1", without linking to "Spike: Whatever", which was published in between, though it belongs to the same meta-series. On the page of "Spike: Whatever" there could be links either to "Buffy Vol.x" and "Buffy Vol.x+1" (putting it in perspective of the main series), to two other Spike publications (therefor treating all Spike publications as a series), as long as it stays consistent within them as well, or to nothing at all.

It should be clear to always differentiate between issue publications and collection publications. It simply doesn't make sense at all to link an issue to a TPB which was published a day later and which collects issues far older than the linking one. But I haven't noticed such mixups anyway, so I don't think that's a problem.

So, what's your opinion? I for myself prefer ordering by series (with links to publications outside the series only at the beginning and the end), but I could do with ordering by meta-series as well, as long as it's used consistently. And at present, that's definitely not the case. WikiaFrogo (talk) 12:45, April 12, 2013 (UTC)

Some pages still use older templates, but all newer pages use the series-neutral comic issue template. Those pages with the new template keep strictly to the order by series as you call it. I think we ought to stick to that and when updating older pages, we should move them to the new template. ―Paul van Gent (talk 10:40, April 13, 2013 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. I wasn't sure if there has already been a consensus, that's why I asked this here. Did I miss a place where these things are explained? So far I found most of these informations on how to do things here spread through various talk pages, but I'd rather have a "HowTo"-Page for this wiki where all is collected at one place.

However, now when working through the titles I'll try to update all of them to the new template and get the publication order consistent, so thanks again! Just one last thing: What should be done regarding the fields "previous" and "next" when editing first issues or last issues, respectively? Should we simply leave them blank? What about one-shots or TPBs collecting mini-serieses? WikiaFrogo (talk) 12:50, April 13, 2013 (UTC)

If you leave previous blank it will automatically say "First issue in series", similarly if you leave next blank it will automatically say "Final issue in series". If leave series blank the previous and next fields will simply not appear, it will automatically say "One-shot" in this area. For trade paperbacks we have the ComicCollection Template, which does not refer to series at all, because many comic collection contain more than one series and even meta-series. ―Paul van Gent (talk 15:05, April 13, 2013 (UTC)

Thanks again! But why not keep the publication order for collections as well? In my opinion that would still make sense, as often series are published it several individual collection books (like Season 8 Vol.1-8, or the likewise HC editions 1-4). They could easily be linked to each other, if you keep to the series (as with the issues), enabling you to quickly browse through these as well. And if a collection does not belong to a series of collections, the entries can still be easily omitted. What would be the downside of this approach? WikiaFrogo (talk) 15:29, April 16, 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I just made an account so that I could correct the same issue, made some changes, and just realized that I should have checked to make sure I was doing it correctly. I'm not sure that I followed the rule that you all are discussing (honestly, I find all of this a little confusing). Basically, I had been browsing through the 'comic collections' or TPB ordering of the classic Buffy comics and kept getting stuck due to the previous/next links not always being consistent. I tried to fill in some of the problematic blanks that seemed logical. Ex. Both 'Food Chain' and 'Past Lives' has 'Spike and Dru' as their intermediate, but 'Spike and Dru' listed neither so I added them to the page. This had seemed to make sense (the Buffy Classic series was linked with mini-series that seemed part of its larger grouping, i.e. OZ). I was progressing along until I hit False Memories/Ugly Little Monsters which both name Tales of the Slayers as an intermediary. I think you are all in agreement that Tales is not part of the same meta-series and therefore should not be included in this timeline (the linked page isn't even using the same page template). But, I could be wrong. Until now I was only filling in blanks, not deleting anything, so I'm reluctant to continue. You can do a quick click through and see what I mean. What do you all think about this? I'm new to editing the wiki and don't want to break things! Diantose (talk) 04:04, December 5, 2013 (UTC)